“Working in Public: Open Scholarship and Generous Thinking” will be the subject of a presentation by Kathleen Fitzpatrick at 5:30 p.m. October 25, in the Bone Student Center Circus Room. The presentation is free and open to the public.

Fitzpatrick is director of digital humanities and a professor of English at Michigan State University. In her presentation, she will discuss how working in public, and with the public, can enable scholars to build vital, sustainable research communities, both within their fields, with other scholars in different fields, and with the off-campus community.

Fitzpatrick has served as associate executive director and director of scholarly communication of the Modern Language Association, where she was managing editor of PMLA and other MLA publications. During that time, she also held an appointment as visiting research professor of English at New York University. She is author of Generous Thinking: The University and the Public Good, as well as Planned Obsolescence: Publishing, Technology, and the Future of the Academy, and The Anxiety of Obsolescence: The American Novel in the Age of Television. She is project director of Humanities Commons, an open-access, open-source network serving more than 13,000 scholars and practitioners in the humanities.

The talk is part of the Illinois State University Speaker Series, which brings innovative and enlightening speakers to the campus with the aim of providing the community with a platform to foster dialogue, cultivate enriching ideas, and continue an appreciation of learning as an active and lifelong process. All talks are free and open to the public.